2007-11-15

Austin avant-meisters Brown Whornet (myspace) are like creeper weed: you kind of go "what the fuck? not bad..." at first, but slowly it envelops you. The faux-crooning and musical weirdness and tongues in cheek start to warble your own sensibilities a bit, and this is a good thing. Fans of Ween, Zappa, and Mr. Bungle / Fantomas should really like them, but they do have their own peculiarities, both musically and in their presentation. Chicago Reader says: "Brown Whörnet mangle free jazz, luv-me-baby R & B, parodically straight hardcore, and something that sounds like Yes on a boom box whose batteries are dying are all in their arsenal." They do musical scores for old silent movies ("Nosferatu"-1922, "The Adventures of Prince Achmed"-1926, and "The Lost World"-1925), their live shows often see costumes and slide slows, and have been as likely as (my heroes) TFUL282 (who they've toured with, along with Melt-Banana and Wesley Willis) to use outtakes from the studio or even a late-night hotel jam sessions on their releases. Brown Whornet have been on hiatus for a while, but are back with a series of new releases that they are making available as free downloads. They've got about 300 hours of audio that they're going to be releasing - two episodes a month, each episode containing more musical ideas than most bands' discographies. Releases like this are normally known as a podcasts, only, of course, these are called Brownloads. And to celebrate, they're playing a rare show Saturday night in Austin, I can't wait.

And these are from a couple of older albums, the first three from Now I have A Pussy (funniest album cover of all time) and the fourth from Emena Pesticode, and both are available as a package deal along with a cassette as a Valupack HERE, along with lots of other releases sure to make your collection a bit more interesting.

"This morning, thanks to a controlled near-death experience, I was lucky enough to meet, at the far end of the blue tunnel, a man named Salvatore Biagini. Last July 8th, Mr. Biagini, a retired construction worker, age seventy, suffered a fatal heart attack while rescuing his beloved schnauzer, Teddy, from an assault by an unrestrained pit bull named Chele, in Queens. The pit bull, with no previous record of violence against man or beast, jumped a four-foot fence in order to have at Teddy. Mr. Biagini, an unarmed man with a history of heart trouble, grabbed him, allowing the schnauzer to run away. So the pit bull bit Mr. Biagini in several places and then Mr. Biagini's heart quit beating, never to beat again. I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to have died for a schnauzer named Teddy. Salvadore Biagini was philosophical. He said it sure as heck beat dying for absolutely nothing in the Vietnam War." -Kurt Vonnegut, "God Bless You Dr. Kevorkian"

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"When the priest leans over me, starts talking about Jesus and the state of my soul, please remind him... we're having a funeral here, not a play" -Of Montreal, "Scenes From My Funeral"

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"And in a deep funk I felt a murky brotherhood with the inhalers of water, intentional or not" -TFUL 282, "Sinking Boats"

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"If they say, for instance, that music hurt my ears, we assume that it probably didn't, that what were hurt were mental attitudes and feelings."
-John Cage

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* I won't always have the absolute most current new thing, but what you can count on me for is to pan through all the shit and bring you just the gold nuggets. If you are an artist or company who doesn't want me to post your material, please let me know and I will take it down immediately, but realize I am not here to make a buck, only to help spread your sounds. Please send news or mp3s of anything musical to the above address (contact for a postal address) but please note that I will never promise to post anything... If (I think) it's great, it'll be posted... if it's good, please don't take offense if I don't post it, it doesn't mean it's bad... Don't be discouraged, outside of close family and friends enthusiasm for good music (and a buzz) is all some of us really have left!